This prosthetic robot tentacle is for the geeky and efficient amputee

Prosthetic limb technology has come a long way since Captain Hook or Peg Leg Pete’s time. Regretfully driven by some of the tragic limb losses off soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the last decade has seen marked improvement in artificial limbs, so much so that we have competitive Olympic sprinters who are also double leg amputees.

More complicated to emulate than legs, though, are missing hands. While prosthetic hand and arm technology has come a long way in a relatively short amount of time, about the only thing that prosthetic hands are really good for are simple grips of objects.

Here’s the question, though: if you’re missing a hand, why mess with a prosthetic hand that can only with great effort grip an object that a real hand can easily manage, when instead you can use a more alien and robotic prosthetic limb that not only looks awesome, but can grip objects far better?

Designer Kaylene Kau wondered just that, and as part of her desire to “push the boundaries of current upper-limb prosthetic design,” she came up with this robotic tentacle. It’s powered by a small motor, and when it touchs an object that the limb’s owner wants to grip, it curls sinuously around the object, holding it fast.

Sure, having a prosthetic limb as weird and alien as an octopus’ arm might not be the best choice for going to a black tie affair, but heck, if it does the job better than a prosthetic hand, why not celebrate your geeky individuality with a robot tentacle if you’ve had the misfortune to lose your arm? I know I’d think you were cool.